1000 Days For The Planet - Komodo Dragons
Komodo National Park, Flores, Indonesia
This project was a unique one, involving a fifty foot sailboat, Sedna IV, which has been exploring the worlds vast biodiversity and uncovering many stories along the way.
Jean Lemire, scientist and UN Ambassador for the environment, decided to explore Indonesia for three months. We visited four islands and five National Parks each with tale to tell.
The first stop took us to the dragons, an endangered species. and the largest lizards on earth. Komodo National Park, Flores - Indonesia.
Sometimes dragons and villagers share the same space. This is when the trouble begins. The villagers believe an old myth of a local woman who gives birth to twins, one a female and one a dragon. They have a deep belief that humans and dragons are closely related, and that dragons are humans...with a tail.
We met a sixty-year-old woman who had been attacked by a dragon but refused to kill it believing it to be a member of her family. Another family tries to cope with the loss of their six-year-old boy tragically killed by the dragon.
The dragons have evolved to kill their prey. They don't distinguish between a goat, or a deer, or an innocent child. They are a prehistoric predator.
